Political Plays of the Year: The Gambits

We have compiled the biggest political plays of the year—the damaging gaffes and the sometimes successful gambits. Yesterday, we asked you to vote on the gaffes — comments or actions that took on a life of their own contrary to the candidate’s intentions. Today, Friday, we ask you to review the top strategic moves of the year — whether successful or not — which we’re calling gambits.

Without further ado, here are the gambits. Scroll to the bottom to cast your vote.

The Play: Clint Eastwood in Primetime

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The Strategy: The Republican National Convention took an unexpected turn as actor and director Clint Eastwood, a “surprise” speaker, delivered a rambling talk to an empty chair representing President Barack Obama. The speech, which began as the convention moved to network TV coverage, marked an odd primetime moment in an otherwise highly scripted night.

Mr. Eastwood talked for nearly 15 minutes, suggesting in his imagined conversation that Mr. Obama was making profane remarks, insulting Vice President Joe Biden and implying that lawyers weren’t suited to be president—though both Messrs. Obama and Romney are Harvard-trained lawyers.

The Result: Though the Romney campaign was caught off guard, the campaign issued this statement minutes later: “Judging an American icon like Clint Eastwood through a typical political lens doesn’t work. His ad-libbing was a break from all the political speeches, and the crowd enjoyed it.”

Republican Romney supporters took to Twitter to attack Mr. Obama’s record under the hashtag #emptychairday.

The Play: Romney Chooses Ryan as Running Mate

The Strategy: Rep. Paul Ryan, one of the Republican Party’s fastest-rising stars, added a dash of youth to the ticket and gave it a little Midwestern, blue-collar appeal. By tapping Mr. Ryan, Mr. Romney embraced the polarizing budget blueprints the House Budget Committee chairman has trotted out over the years, from transforming Medicare into a system of subsidized private insurance to allowing wage earners to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in the stock market–stances that could prove risky in an election.

The Result: The ticket lost the election. Although the decision sparked enthusiasm for the Republican ticket among conservatives, more than half of those polled for Wall Street Journal/NBC News shortly after the announcement said the vice presidential pick doesn’t affect their vote either way. Mr. Ryan also magnified the deep philosophical divisions between the two parties over spending, taxes and entitlements.

Below, Mitt Romney announces his running mate:

Below, Paul Ryan joins the Romney campaign in Norfolk, Va.:

The Play: Pro-Obama Ad Tying Romney to a Missouri Death

The Strategy: In a one-minute ad from pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action, melancholy music plays as Missouri resident Joe Soptic says he and his family lost their health-care coverage when GST Steel of Kansas City closed in 2001, and “a short time after that, my wife became ill.” She later died of cancer, Mr. Soptic says in the ad.

“I don’t think Mitt Romney understands what he’s done to people’s lives by closing the plant,” Mr. Soptic says in the ad, which ran in five battleground states and online.

GST Steel was owned by Bain Capital, which Mr. Romney co-founded, and other investors from 1993 until 2001. Ilyona Soptic’s illness was diagnosed five years after the plant was closed. Mr. Romney left Bain in 1999 and had no role in the decision to close the plant, his campaign said.

The Result: The provocative ad sparked criticism from Republicans and some supporters of President Barack Obama. Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, accused the super PAC of “exploiting the tragic death of a woman with cancer to further their political agenda.” Peter Buttenwieser, a longtime Obama supporter and fundraiser, said the ad was just one of many that he considered unduly negative and arguably unfair.

In an interview with the Journal, Mr. Soptic said he thought the ad was fair. But at the same time, he said of Mr. Romney: “I’m not blaming him for her death. I wouldn’t do that.”

Below, the “Understands” ad:

The Play: Romney’s Auto Ad in Ohio

The strategy: The Romney campaign released an advertisement in Ohio at the end of October that challenged President Barack Obama‘s effort to take credit for saving U.S. auto jobs with his government-backed rescues of General Motors and Chrysler. The campaign was making a full-court press to win the state. The ad, which featured nostalgic images of people enjoying rides in their cars and then cars getting crushed at a junkyard, stated that Mr. Obama “took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.” At the time it aired, a poll for Ohio newspapers suggested the race for the state’s 18 electoral votes was a dead heat.

The result: The Romney campaign stood by the ad. Sergio Marchionne, the CEO of Chrysler and its majority owner, Italian auto maker Fiat, issued a statement to employees saying any suggestion that Chrysler planned to shift Jeep assembly jobs to China from its U.S. factories is inaccurate. GM spokesman Greg Martin said the political campaign had entered a “parallel universe.” Since it emerged from bankruptcy, GM had added about 19,000 jobs in the U.S., Mr. Martin said.

The Obama campaign noted that Mr. Romney had made a more aggressive statement the week before the ad aired that Jeep was planning to move all production to China, which Chrysler says is not the case, and accused Mr. Romney of “trying to scare Ohioans.”

Mr. Obama sealed his victory in the election with wins in swing states including Ohio.

“No president—not me, not any of my predecessors, no one—could have repaired all the damage that he found in just four years,” he said.

“Since 1961, for 52 years now, Republicans held the White House for 28 years, Democrats 24. In those 52 years, our private economy has produced 66 million private-sector jobs. So what’s the jobs score? Republicans 24 million, Democrats 42,” he said near the beginning of his speech.

And more: “The Recovery Act saved and created millions of jobs and cut taxes for 95% of the American people. In the last 29 months the economy has produced about 4.5 million private-sector jobs. But last year, the Republicans blocked the president’s jobs plan, costing the economy more than a million new jobs. So here’s another jobs score: President Obama plus 4.5 million, congressional Republicans zero.”

The Play: The Campaign and Superstorm Sandy

The Problem:Superstorm Sandy shifted campaign plans just a week ahead of the presidential election. President Barack Obama canceled campaign events and Mitt Romney suspended much of his campaigning as the storm headed up the East Coast.

The Result: Mr. Obama and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a prominent Republican frequently mentioned as a 2016 presidential candidate, together surveyed storm damage along the New Jersey coast. Mr. Christie praised the president’s response to the disaster. Neil Newhouse, Mr. Romney’s pollster, told donors that Hurricane Sandy played at least some role in Mr. Obama’s success in the election, as his response to the storm made him appear more presidential to some voters during the last week of the campaign, according to a person on the call.

On the other hand, Mr. Obama’s margin of victory in the overall popular vote may well have been larger if not for Sandy. The extensive damage in the blue states of New York and New Jersey suppressed voter turnout there—down 17% in New York from 2008 and down nearly 7.7% in New Jersey.

One narrative that emerged in an attempt to explain Mr. Romney’s loss is that Sandy halted the Republican candidate’s momentum in the final week before the election. It’s an interesting theory that isn’t really supported by the facts, wrote Gerald F. Seib. A look back at the averages of polls conducted in the nine most hotly contested battleground state polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com shows that Mr. Romney gained ground between Oct. 2 and Oct. 26 in all nine of those states, though not enough to take a clear lead in any except North Carolina. But then, between Oct. 26 and Oct. 30—the day the hurricane hit the East Coast—the Romney advance came to a halt. In that period, his support was flat in polling in four of the battleground states, down a point in three of them, and up a point in two. In other words, Mr. Romney hit a plateau just before the hurricane shook up the political system.

About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.